The hours that followed Linx's betrayal were a haze of agony, lessoned only slightly by the rage ignited inside me. My father's physicians fussed over my bed, staunched the blood, and tested what control I still had. But they were the King's physicians and I wanted nothing from my father. They were there to report back to him, not to help me.

To get rid of them quickly and avoid suspicion, I took their pain relievers. Perhaps it was the mix with the Black Night, but I found myself plunged into a half-lucid state of waking nightmares. The mens faces shifted and distorted. I grew convinced one of them was Linx hiding behind a physician's mask. My mind played tricks on me until I was on my feet, hobbling about, flailing my sword so that they would leave. After chasing them from my quarters, I fell into a fretful sleep and woke on the floor.

A woman kneeled over me, wiping my brow with a wet cloth.

'Where is Ingrid?' I choked. My body wracked with agony. The Black Night and anaesthetic had faded and pain rose up through the mist like a mountain range with summits made of knives. In my confused mind, I was four years old again, ripped from my nurse, sent from my home, banished by my father. Reduced to a snivelling, motherless, miserable infant.

'It is the Black Night, Your Highness,' the woman said. 'You have taken too much. It has confused and poisoned your mind.'

'Lady Calmi?' Her face was a blur in the shadows of the fire's flames. But I remembered the emptiness of those startling eyes which now gazed upon me. The mirror I did not wish to look into, staring straight back. And maybe it was the Black Night's poison, but I knew Lady Calmi and I were the same. We were forsaken, damned, alone.

'Lingred sent me to care for you after he heard you'd chased the physicians from your chambers with the threat of their lives.' She spoke without moving to touch her dress, or her hair. She was as still as the land beneath us. In the shipwrecked waters now occupied by my mind, I imagined she held a way of soothing the darkness, of commanding it like one would a wild sea monster.

I struggled to raise my head. She gently pushed me back down.

'We have done something to the Gods and so they have abandoned us. Terrible things we cannot remember.'

'Sshh. It is the poison in your mind speaking. Try to rest.'

'Is there rest for the damned?'

'You are not damned.' Her sharp voice punctured the murky gloom. Perhaps she had recourse with the Gods.

'How do you soothe the darkness?'

Her hand moved to my chest. She wrapped her fingers around the empty phial on my neckband. Her eyes grew colder.

'I will not give you this again, Your Highness.' She ripped hard and the thread broke. She slipped the thumb-sized bottle into her pocket. Then she put the wet cloth back against my brow and it was as though she was burning me with ice.

'You will recover, Prince Jakut,' she said. She was speaking in that voice again, as though searching the future and reporting back what she had found. Her words steadied my heart, defied the emptiness grasping at my soul.

There came the soft creek of a leather boot. I startled. Someone was in my outer chambers. I grabbed my knife.

'It is the master,' Calmi said, gently putting down my hand. 'He wishes to speak with you. I will leave and return when the sun moves again on the horizon.'

She rose, midnight blue skirts sweeping around her, like the dome of a starry sky.

'It is like the stars,' I said, raising a hand towards her skirt. 'All seems black, but the stars only grow visible when there is no sun.' 

She looked down at me, eyes unfathomable. And then she was gone.

The master moved to my side. He was double my age, but he had no trouble carrying me to my bed. Once he had lain me on the covers, he lit the torch above my night table. Shadows moved across his face, serpents slithering beneath his bronzed skin.

'Lady Calmi tells me the Black Night has muddled your mind.' His eyes were solemn and unhappy.

'They show me truths no heart wishes to see.'

'Listen to me, Jakut.' He knelt by my bedside, one hand slipping behind my neck. 'I wish you to concentrate.'

I nodded.

'The King's physicians say the knife tore a ligament. You will be bedridden until the end of the summer. I have seen such tears before. You are fit and young and there is a good chance it will heal.'

In the silence between his words I heard what he wasn't saying. 'I will never be an Elite commander.'

'You have two grave injuries now and they may prove too much of a penalty. But even if you surmount them, there is a greater obstacle in your way.'

The King.

Neither of us would commit treason by saying it. Besides, it wasn't necessary.

'Why?' I said. Why initiate me into the gruelling military combat training if my father never intended for me to become an Elite commander? Why allow me to dream for nine years of a purpose higher than the royal court and her intrigues and gossips and broken loyalties ? Why let me hope, when no matter if I was capable of honestly qualifying in the tournament, he would prevent it ?

My father's cruel soul seemed to loom across me as a suffocating cloud. His voice drifted in my mind.

Let him see the light. Let him use all his strength to crawl towards it. And just when he thinks he has reached it, he will realise it never existed. Crushed and destroyed by his own hope.

Master Alster shook his head. I knew from the way he had trained and coached and pushed me beyond what I ever thought myself capable of, and by the way he had instilled in me the confidence I lacked, that he thought he would be honouring his King to provide a first born son skilled enough to join the Elite Commanders. Without the master, without my training, I was nothing.

'Was my mother so terrible?' I asked. 'Does he truely believe I am not his blood ?'

Master Alster put a hand on my left shoulder. 'Rest,' he said. 'I will return when I can. Rest and we will talk when the Black Night has worked its way out of your spirit.'

***

Hope you liked the chapter! 

For any of you who missed my announcement earlier this week:

SHADOW WEAVER is going to be published on December 11th!!! *throws confetti*

You can win a personally signed PAPERBACK COPY !!
I'm giving away 5 COPIES to anyone who leaves a review on Amazon (any country - UK, US, Canada, India, wherever... planet earth!) between 11th Dec and 22nd Dec. You will be entered in a prize draw, to win one of 5 personally addressed and signed paperbacks of Shadow Weaver.
All you have to do :
1. Have an Amazon account. If you don't have one, maybe someone in your family does and would let you post a review on it.
2. Write and post your review. This can be as long or short as you like, just be honest, and please don't give away the plot !
3. Send me a personal message on Wattpad titled "Amazon review" with a link to your review, or the name you used as the reviewer.
4. Check back on Christmas Eve to see if you've won a copy of Shadow Weaver !

Of course those of you who just want to buy yourself a paperback copy - or buy one for someone else for Christmas, get over here and give me a hug!!

It is thanks to the wonderful love you guys have shown Shadow Weaver that the book is going to be finally be published. Thank you! I *heart* you all
xox Claire